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Being a Lifelong Learner
Being a Lifelong Learner: Image
Something that I have always prided myself on is that I consider myself to be a lifelong learner. In order to be a lifelong learner that does not mean learning only takes place in formal settings, learning can also happen through informal ways. However, I am going to focus on continuing my journey of being a lifelong learner in a formal setting and that brings us to my master’s journey. Towards the end of 2019, I first began thinking about what I wanted to pursue a master’s degree in. I was not sure where to begin. Did I want to focus on teaching and curriculum? Educational Administration? With not even a thought crossing my mind that a degree in educational technology was a possibility. Then one day as I was scrolling through social media I saw one of my friend’s posts about how much they were enjoying earning their master’s degree through the MAET program. At the time I had no idea that MAET stood for Master of Arts in Educational Technology. I reached out to this friend to find out more about the program and what it entailed. When she told me that it was about incorporating technology in new ways that sparked my interest because there was a lot of emphasis beginning to be put on using technology in the classroom. As I was looking into the MAET program I discovered that there was a study abroad option which really sparked my interest because this is something that I had not considered before. Learning about technology while studying abroad I was pretty much immediately sold, so I reached out to Michigan State’s College of Education counseling office to get started. Now although my initial plans to work on my masters degree while studying abroad have not worked out due to the pandemic I still have enjoyed my master’s journey.
Over the past two years I have worked on the initial goals I had going into the program and created new goals. The MAET program has provided me with strategies and the ability to dive deeper into experiences with new technologies and theories that will help me to continue exploring my goals. One of the big strategies that helped me to deepen my understanding was reflecting on my learning and the impacts that it had. Throughout my MAET journey there have been many meaningful projects that have helped me to reflect on my own practices and those who have influenced my practices. Some of these meaningful projects include reflecting on my professional learning network (PLN), exploring and researching educational wicked problems and creating a 21st century lesson plan. These impactful projects were because of some of the impactful courses that I took during my journey through the MAET program.
Being a Lifelong Learner: Text
My very first MAET course was one the most impactful courses. This course was CEP 810 Teaching and Understanding with Technology. In this course I learned of a framework for technology integration. This was the TPACK framework which stands for Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. The TPACK framework gives me and other educators something to consider when considering what type of technology to integrate into our lessons. It is in this course that I worked through two of my meaningful projects. The first project is to reflect and analyze my professional learning network and the benefits that one can have as an educator and student when they explore other networks. Through this project I was able to expand my PLN through making connections with other educators on Twitter allowing me access to their resources and knowledge. Another impactful project I worked on during this course was creating a 21st century lesson plan. During this project I learned about the 4 C’s: collaboration, creativity, communication, and critical thinking and how these can help to prepare my students for the “real world” because those are things they are faced with everyday. Having an understanding of 21st century learning and the 4 C’s more specifically has encouraged me to constantly consider how I can incorporate these skills into my classroom.
Being a Lifelong Learner: Text
A second MAET course that was impactful for me was CEP 811 Adapting Innovative Technologies to Education. This course encouraged me to explore innovative technologies that I could use in my classroom and develop a new way to think about how I could repurpose the technologies that I was already familiar with. The project where I designed a classroom was meaningful to me because it helped me think about how to repurpose a space with materials that I already had along with adding new ones. I considered the colors I am using in my classroom, the natural lighting (or lack thereof) that I have available, and my seating options. This thought process of repurposing my classroom led me to think of ways I could repurpose the technology I have access to. To move away from just using the chromebooks that I have access to for their most basic of purposes (typing on google docs, kahoots, researching, etc.). Changing my mindset to think of ways to repurpose technology led me to being more creative and exploring new possibilities within my curriculum standards. A project that helped me to stretch my thinking when it came to incorporating technology and exploring new possibilities within my curriculum standards was my innovative technology lesson plan. In this project I took innovative technologies (Makey Makey and Scratch) and used them to create a learning experience for multiple curriculum standards. This lesson plan creation helped me to see the benefits to student centered learning through allowing my students to explore, make mistakes, learn from those mistakes and then share their work with others not just in our classroom but globally as well.
Being a Lifelong Learner: Text
A third MAET course that was impactful for me and practices was CEP 812 Applying Educational Technology to Issues of Practice. One of the main takeaways from this course was the power of questioning. Throughout this course I was able to explore a variety of school related issues and how different technology tools can be used to address these issues. While exploring this school related issue, questioning played a powerful role in my survey design, collecting and analyzing data, research, and sharing my research. Through exploration of a school related issue in my case the importance of making cross curricular connections and questioning I worked through my educational Wicked Problem. By analyzing this wicked problem within my school setting it allowed me to have an understanding of how to investigate an issue and create a plan to address the issue or create solutions. Through this process I was able to explore the importance of making cross curricular connections with a specific focus of making environmental connections as this is a daily goal of mine working in an environmental science school. I quickly discovered that this wicked problem has a lot of complexity to it and has a lot of dependent variables like curriculum standards, district policies, and the amount of autonomy an educator is able to have. While trying to solve one wicked problem I discovered several other wicked problems leading to more questioning. Although I did not have time to explore each of the wicked problems I discovered while exploring my initial wicked problem I was able to create a starting point for a solution to making cross curricular connections which can be found in my blog post about my experience.
Going back to my takeaway from this course, questioning, this is something that I have started to implement in my classroom and practices this year. I learned that questioning is so important and that young children are constantly questioning but as they grow older their questioning begins to decrease at time even disappearing. An important quote that stood out to me from Warren Berger’s, A More Beautiful Question, was “if a student thinks of a question him/herself, it is likely to be of more interest than someone else’s question” (Berger, 2014, p. 56). Learning this made me want to encourage more student-led questioning in the classroom and questioning of themselves. Not only do I want to encourage my students to question more but I also want to continue the practice of questioning myself. Question how I can better my instruction, how I present my content, how I can incorporate technology into my classroom and how I can incorporate technology effectively and meaningfully.
Being a Lifelong Learner: Text
It is crazy to think about how fast my time in the Master of the Arts in Educational Technology degree program has been. Although this time has been a whirlwind I have learned many things that have altered my views on education and technology. One of my initial goals when entering the MAET program was to learn how to effectively integrate technology into my classroom. I believe that I accomplished my goal in a variety of ways through each one of the courses and the meaningful feedback I received from my instructors. I have learned new practices on how to find the right technology to make education engaging, inspiring, and inquiry-based through being student-led. I have also learned how to repurpose technology to align with curriculum standards but extend beyond the basic principles of the technology. Throughout my journey in the MAET program I have learned the importance of not only challenging and questioning myself but educational practices then researching evidence-based practices that best support me and my students. Another important idea that has resonated with me throughout my time is that I need to be open to going out of my comfort zone and question the world around me. I need to do this so that I can model for my students the importance of questioning and going beyond their comfort zones. I want my students to be critical thinkers who are not afraid to make mistakes. I am thankful for my time in the MAET program because it has shown me how technology can be used to explore and question and how I can implement these practices with my students. I look forward to using my new knowledge and sharing it with my peers and students. I also look forward to continuing my journey of being lifelong learner.
Being a Lifelong Learner: Text
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